‘Then you will escape?’
‘Not to-day. It were base to flee before danger comes. We must hold out at our post to the last moment, even if we dare not die at it like heroes. And to-morrow I go to the lecture-room,—to the beloved Museum, for the last time, to take farewell of my pupils. Unworthy as they are, I owe it to myself and to philosophy to tell them why I leave them.’
‘It will be too dangerous—indeed it will!’
‘I could take the guards with me, then. And yet—no.... They shall never have occasion to impute fear to the philosopher. Let them see her go forth as usual on her errand, strong in the courage of innocence, secure in the protection of the gods. So, perhaps, some sacred awe, some suspicion of her divineness, may fall on them at last.’
‘I must go with you.’
‘No, I go alone. You might incur danger where I am safe. After all, I am a woman.... And, fierce as they are, they will not dare to harm me.’
The old man shook his head.
‘Look now,’ she said smilingly, laying her hands on his shoulders, and looking into his face.... ‘You tell me that I am beautiful, you know; and beauty will tame the lion. Do you not think that this face might disarm even a monk?’
And she laughed and blushed so sweetly, that the old man forgot his fears, as she intended that he should, and kissed her and went his way for the time being, to command all manner of hospitalities to the soldiers, whom he prudently determined to keep in his house as long as he could make them stay there; in pursuance of which wise purpose he contrived not to see a great deal of pleasant flirtation between his valiant defenders and Hypatia’s maids, who, by no means so prudish as their mistress, welcomed as a rare boon from heaven an afternoon’s chat with twenty tall men of war.
So they jested and laughed below, while old Theon, having brought out the very best old wine, and actually proposed in person, by way of mending matters, the health of the Emperor of Africa, locked himself into the library, and comforted his troubled soul with a tough problem of astronomy, which had been haunting him the whole day, even in the theatre itself. But Hypatia sat still in her chamber, her face buried in her hands, her heart full of many thoughts; her eyes of tears. She had smiled away her father’s fears; she could not smile away her own.